Try This SOS-Free Vegan Irish Stew!

Our whole household has been sick this week, so I have not been out to a store and will be making our St. Patrick's Day meal from our pantry and fridge.

As a part of it, I will make a simple salt-oil-and-sugar-free vegan Irish stew.

If you'd like to make something similar, here's the recipe:

1 onion, diced
6-8 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons of GF flour
3 cans white potatoes, chopped
4-6 carrots, sliced
2 tablespoons tomato paste
4 cups water
1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
1 tablespoon marjoram
1 can green beans
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
a generous splash liquid amino acids

1. Put just enough water in the bottom of a large pot to cover the bottom. Add diced onions and minced garlic. Cook for several minutes until starting to become translucent.

2. Sprinkle flour on onion-garlic mix and stir in.

3. Add potatoes, carrots, tomato paste, water, and herbs. Cook until carrots are as soft as you like them.

4. Add green beans, vinegar, and amino acids. Stir in.

You can eat this stew freshly made, or let it sit for a bit for the flavors to mix together and deepen. Any canned ingredients can be swapped out for fresh or frozen and vice versa. You can also add other vegetables if you like. It's quite a forgiving recipe and one my entire family likes despite it being vegan, salt-, oil-, and -sugar-free (which *I* love, but my family sometimes balks at.)

St. Patrick, pray for us.

 

3 No Prep Ways to Celebrate St. Patrick's Day

Since late January, my family has been been facing wave after wave of crazy times - the flu, a belly bug, crazy wind-and-snow storms, job loss, and more...  Thanks be to God, there have been plenty of blessings among the challenges, some of which have added to the busyness of life - such as our homeschool co-op starting again (with me teaching two classes and coordinating the entire co-op) and the children competing in a Destination Imagination competition (with me as their Team Manager).  So, I'd by lying if I said I am not a bit tired.  

Good tired.  

Thankful tired.  

But, nonetheless, just plain tired.

Thus, as I look at the calendar and see that St.Patrick's day is not even a week away, I cannot even conceive of putting together anything akin to celebrations and lessons I have for this feast day in the past.  I just don't have the mental brain power or physical energy to do so right now.  So, instead, I plan to keep things simple this year by:

• putting out some saint candles
• making only one or two of the festive foods we've had in the past
• reading Saint Patrick stories in any of the many saint biography books we already have in our home 
• leading the children through a chat related to St. Patrick
• challenging the children to write a story about St. Patrick from a specific point of view
• and, since St. Patrick is patron to engineers, we will likely do a small engineering/design challenge, too.

If you'd like to no-prep Saint Patrick's celebration, too.  Please feel free to borrow these ideas:

Read and Chat

After reading about Saint Patrick in one of our many saint biography collections, the children and I will chat, using questions and thoughts such as:

• What happened to St. Patrick when he was a boy? What would it feel like to be taken from your home and forced to work alone all the time?  How do you think Patrick felt?  What would you do in his situation?
• It would be easy to feel lonely or fall into despair in the situation Patrick was in.  How did he avoid despair?
• Sometimes, when we are in tough situations, it is hard to remain virtuous.  What virtues and strength of character did Patrick show while in captivity?  Would you have similar patience and faithfulness?  Would you be able to pray for six years even when it seemed your prayers were not being answered?  Can you think of a time your prayers did not seem to be being answered?  How did you respond?
• After Patrick escaped Ireland, he returned home, but, then, realized he could not stay there.  Why?  What happened in his life?  How did he respond and how would you have responded?
• How does the story of Saint Patrick show us that God speaks to the “least" of people and that any of us may be called - and equipped - to share about God at any time?

Creative Writing

Since all of my children have been enjoying creative writing lately, I will suggest that we each spend three minutes brainstorming events and miracles related to Saint Patrick's life and collecting a word map of ideas together and, then, 17 minutes working on stories that take a snippet of Saint Patrick's life and retell it through the eyes of a fictional contemporary to Saint Patrick.  (Three minutes, then 17 minutes, because Saint Patrick died on March 17.) This might mean we tell of his capture, his time as a shepherd, his escape, his ministry.  Or, we might choose to focus on one the many legends that describe miracles that protected St. Patrick or proved the power of the one true God to the pagans he sought to convert.  

Engineering/Design (and Teaching) Challenge

Saint Patrick is patron to engineers, since it is claimed that he was instrumental in the construction of Irish churches and has been credited with teaching the Irish to build arches of lime mortar.  

Legends also tell how St. Patrick taught the people of Ireland about the Holy Trinity using a shamrock.  

With these two ideas in mind, I will ask the children to choose up to seventeen items from our instant design challenge box (straws, paper plates, address labels, paper clips, etc.) and, then, to spend three minutes designing and constructing a self standing teaching tool that contains an arch shape and can be used to explain something about our faith to others.  Then, this done, I will ask them to spend up to three minutes using the tool they created to teach a point of faith. 

I have no doubt they will come up with interesting creations and ideas.

Other Saint Patrick Ideas

More St. Patrick's Day Ideas

If you'd like other ideas for celebrating St. Patrick's Day, you may wish to click through to some of these:

• Feast, Learn, and Enjoy Sensory Activities for Saint Patrick's Feast Day

   

• Planning a Sense-able St. Patrick’s Day Tea and Playdate

• A Sensory-Friendly St. Patrick’s Day Story and Play Time 

• Throw the Snakes Out of Ireland (get your FREE Printable challenge sheet)

Saint Patrick, pray for us!

Enjoy a St. Patrick's Day with Art, Music, and a Poet-Tea

Would you like to add a little art, music, poetry, food and fun to your St. Patrick's Day this year? 

Then, you may wish to take a peak at how we enjoyed a St. Patrick's Day Poet-Tea with friends last year.:
 
"AMP"ing Up the Liturgical Year

First, for those who are unfamiliar with our A.M.P. It Up Club endeavors, a quick synopsis:

Since 2015, some friends and I have been getting out children together for a once-to-twice a month club to "amp up" our focus on art, music, and poetry in our lives.  Typically, at our meetings we:

• recite (and sometimes write verses of) poetry.
• briefly study composers, compositions, music styles, or instruments.
• experiment with different styles of artwork, sometimes after completing quick picture studies.

We also tie our meetings to the liturgical year at times, since all of us are Catholic and enjoy celebrating together. That's exactly what we did for St. Patrick's feast day!
 
The Setting

We kept our setting fairly simple:

• an off-white tablecloth (because the lacy, white tablecloth I wanted to use, reminiscent of Irish lace needed to be laundered after a just-us celebration earlier in the day)

• green and blue candles (because the color green is now associated with St. Patrick's day, but St. Patrick was often depicted in blue in earlier art)

• several Irish-themed knick knacks (just for fun since we had them out already)

• a shamrock candle holder that my niece had welded and given us as a gift (to remind us of the legend that St. Patrick used shamrocks to teach about the Trinity)

• Prayers to My Favorite Saints (so we could view the illustration of St. Patrick in in and read the prayer) 

• a print out about Celtic crosses (so we could explain them to the children)

A St. Patrick's Day Poet-Tea

{Disclosure: Some links which follow are affiliate ones.}

To begin our Poet-Tea, we prayed grace and chatted about what we knew about St. Patrick the Saint and other St. Patrick's day traditions and lore using the food on our table as a starting point.  The fare included:

 Green Matcha Donuts (going with the Irish green theme)

 Potato Hashbrowns (because Ireland is known for its potatoes)

 A Potato-and-More Frittata with "Shamrock" Garnish (because we all need a little protein!)

 An "Irish Flag" Veggie Tray

 Traditional Irish Stew

 A Fruit Rainbow (for the leprechaun legends)

 Green Smoothies(for Ireland's green)  "Liquid Gold" Juice (for the leprechaun legends again), Chocolate Silk (just because we like it) and Irish tea

 More Potato Hash (for Ireland's potatoes)

Leprechaun Gold Juice Wigglers (because my children love juice wigglers)

Oatmeal (because some of mine loves "Irish" oatmeal)

I also drew the children's attention to the illustration and text about St. Patrick in Prayers to My Favorite Saints and led them in further prayer. 

As the children began to eat, for the poetry portion of our Poet-Tea, I read them St. Patrick's Breastplate and some Irish Blessings, (but only a few, so we could all enjoy just eating and chatting together.)  

Then, while we cleaned up the tea, those who wished to took turns playing with our green bodysock (which my children always ask me to pull out at this time of year!)

After that, I offered the children their choice of copywork of Irish blessings or St. Patrick's Breastplate (found FREE at Proverbs 22:6 Academy!) to do for a brief time and encouraged those who wished to pen their own Irish-style blessings.

Music Appreciation and Games

After a short period for copywork, we knew the children were ready to move and groove, so I played some traditional Irish music while the kids danced.  

We talked a bit about what types of instruments we heard in the music and played a bit of "dance freeze".

Then, I asked if anyone could tell me about St. Patrick and the bells and shared a bit from one of our favorite seasonal picture books, St. Patrick and the Three Brave Mice, before taking everyone outside to play our old favorite Snake Freeze,which is always a hit. 

The children so enjoyed playing sneaky snakes.

Running up to steal the bell..

Trying not to be heard...

 

And catching one another...

The Mamas did, too!  So many laughs were had by all.

Imaginative Landscapes Artwork

Once we everyone had had turns at our game, we gathered together to do a picture study about landscapes in my ARTistic Pursuits Elementary Book One.  

Then, we browsed some of the beautiful landscapes illustrations in Ann Tompert's Saint Patrick and other seasonal picture books I had in our book basket before setting to work using pencils, Cray-Pas and Crayola Oil Pastels to create our own imagined landscapes. 

Some of the children went with the Saint Patrick's Ireland theme for their artwork and others did not.  See:

 

All enjoyed our time together observing Saint Patrick's Day with art, music, poetry and more.  In fact, once the children completed their artwork, they were not quite ready to stop celebrating...

Indeed, they decided it was time for a parade.

 
Some Final Fun

In years past, my children have enjoyed many Irish and St. Patrick's day themed picture books, including:

Patrick, Patron Saint of Ireland

St. Patrick's Day in the Morning

The Last Snake in Ireland

Thus, little family traditions of having our bells and drums out around St. Patrick's day and parading around with them have sprung up.  This year, these traditions were shared with friends in our own little noisy parade.

More St. Patrick's Day Ideas

If you'd like other ideas for celebrating St. Patrick's Day, you may wish to click on through to some of these:

• Feast, Learn, and Enjoy Sensory Activities for Saint Patrick's Feast Day

   

• Planning a Sense-able St. Patrick’s Day Tea and Playdate

• A Sensory-Friendly St. Patrick’s Day Story and Play Time 

• Throw the Snakes Out of Ireland (get your FREE Printable challenge sheet)
  
  he Kennedy Adventures Shamrock Sandwiches How-To 

• The Kennedy Adventures Irish Frosties recipe

• The Kennedy Adventures collection of St. Patrick's Day Snacks

• Life, Love and Sacred Art's adorable FREE printable St. Patrick Coloring Page

• Fun ideas at A Slice of Smith Life

 I'd love to hear about how YOU celebrate St. Patrick's Day or approach art, music, and poetry. 

St. Patrick, pray for us!

This post was shared at the 40 Days of Seeking Him Link up

Feast, Learn, and Enjoy Sensory Activities for Saint Patrick's Feast Day

This week, our Art-Music-Poetry club friends will be joining us to celebrate Saint Patrick's feast day.  As I plan forward for that celebration, I have been looking back at the past few year's of Saint Patrick's Day food, fun, and learning that we've been involved with.  In doing so, I realized that I never shared about our simple 2015 celebrations nor our sensory-smart 2014 ones.  So, I am doing so now.  I pray that you are inspired by the menu items, resources, sensory activities, and learning fun we enjoyed.

{Disclosure: This post includes affiliate links to Amazon, CCC of America, Holy Heroes. and Knowledge Quest. If you click through them to make any purchase, we may receive small income at no extra cost to you, which we put straight back into training our children up and sharing about it here.}

Simple St. Patrick's Feast Day Celebrations in 2015 

Last year, regularly scheduled activities had us so busy on Saint Patrick's feast day that we kept our observances of the day fairly simple.When the children woke, they discovered materials on our living room table which would allow them to make St. Patrick Paper Dolls and Pop-Up Scenes with thanks to Drawn 2B Creative. 



I managed to snap one fuzzy photograph of my two early-birds enjoying the paper-doll making activity but, unfortunately,forgot to take pictures of their finished dolls and scenes.

Once my third child woke, we all enjoyed a themed feast day breakfast, which included:

• "pot-o-gold" juice,
• "emerald isle green" foods,
• and "rainbow" fruit.

I cannot honestly recall what recipe I used for our "shamrock green" gluten-free pasta, but I do recall Daddy and I liked it a whole lot better than the children did.

Luckily, two of the three kids loved the crispy kale chips I made, and they all found produce to enjoy in our annual fruit rainbow.

Decorating our table were a few Saint Patrick books, a green candle, some paper decorations made by the kids, and a shamrock candle holder that my sweet niece made and gifted to us.

Over breakfast, we shared some extra prayers and began reading two of our favorite Saint Patrick's Day books, Patrick, Patron Saint of Ireland and Saint Patrick, which we finished later in the day.

  

Then, it was off for full day of activities outside our home, plus some time enjoying wintry weather in the yard, before we cuddled up to view the super-cute, child-friendly CCC video Saint Patrick, Brave Shepard of the Emerald Island.

My children just love such sweet CCC films, and I cannot recommend them enough.

 

Finally, the children and I read through some of our other favorite Saint Patrick's day read alouds that day and over the next few days. 

Celebrating Despite Sorrow - and with Plenty of Sensory Fun -  in 2014

The week of Saint Patrick's Day was a tough one for us in 2014, since it was when we lost and buried my sweet niece.  To help my children cope through the sorrow of losing their cousin, I tried to keep some things as normal as possible for them between all of the extra prayers, extended-family time, and services that followed my niece's death.  Two of these things were celebrating the saints we typically do and participating in a Sensing the Saints co-op I had organized with some friends.

Saint Patrick's Day itself was rather heartbreaking as it was the day of my niece's wake.  Still, I managed to put together a feast day breakfast, which, although watered with intermittent tears, helped my young children maintain some sense of "normalcy" during an abnormally sorrow-filled time.

For breakfast, we decorated the table with candles and had themed foods as we often do.  

We talked about the Trinity symbolism of clovers (and the superstition of lucky 4-leaf clovers, since my pepper slices had "four leaves").  The eggs were a but, the peppers, not so much.

Since making gluten-free Irish soda bread is cumbersome, and this truly was a toss-together-with-what-we-have-in-the-house feast day breakfast, I simply served frozen GFCF bread with the meal, which the children enjoyed, even if they did not make "pot-o-gold" egg and "emerald isle green" baby spinach sandwiches with it as I thought they might.  

They did however,enjoy reading about Saint Patrick in our copy of Loyola Kids Book of Saints. 

They also readily partook in extra prayer time and a later-in-the-day snack of our traditional produce "rainbow"...

an "Irish flag" made of produce...

and a macaroon Celtic cross, which got knocked about and partly-eaten before I snapped a photo of it...

Such festive feast-day foods helped take the edge off the weighty sorrow the children and I were experiencing.

Another day during the week, precious friends took still more edge off for us when they gifted me time to go to Adoration by myself for a short while to pray while simultaneously offering my children a break from focusing on our loss by engaging them in a super-fun morning of learning and sensory activities inspired by Saint Patrick and the country he is patron to.  

I remain ever-grateful to the ladies that joined our Sensing the Saints co-op with for their prayers and support during my family's difficult time of loss and now smile as I look back at photographs from the day and recognize all the love and light my children shared in despite the otherwise dark time it was for us.

The Saint Patrick's Day co-op day, which was planned, prepped, and facilitated by a friend I so cherish, started off with a circle time, where that friend read two of my family's yearly St. Patrick's read alouds, Saint Patrick and St. Patrick and the Three Brave Mice (which happens to be selling for only a penny right now!)  They also played a game with the bell.

After that, the children proceeded onto choice activities, which included:

...using their gustatory and olfactory senses to taste-test different "emerald isle" green foods....

...using fine motor skills and exercising their tactile senses while making "rainbow" kebabs.

...working on patterning while also using fine motor skills, plus their tactile and visual senses while making snakes...

...enjoying more tactile, visual, and fine motor fun painting snakes and rainbows with toothpicks and mini-marshmallows...

...and using tactile senses and fine motor skills while sorting and graphing cereal pieces using free printables which no longer seem to be available online.

(You can however find similar printables to the one pictured below that we used if you Google "Lucky Charms graphing".)

After choice time, it was onto science time, where the children made green and, the, rainbow colors with the same experiment we had enjoyed when reviewing Amazing Science, Volume 1.

This experiment never fails to fascinate children (and their visual sense)...

The experiment is also great for the kids' pincer grasps!

Finally, the children made flubber.  Luke chose to make St. Patrick's original traditional color (blue) as opposed to his nowadays one (green.)

Being able to see his smile amidst the sorrow of the week was so precious to me.

Knowing my children were nourished body and soul meant so much!

Our Sensing the Saints St, Patrick's Day co-op day sure was a light for us that week!

Free Printable Unit Study

This year, my children's focus when celebrating Saint Patrick with friends will not be on sensory activities, but on art, music, and poetry, as well as, of course, prayer and feasting.  We'll also be enjoying some learning activities since I saw this FREE St. Patrick unit study that Knowledge Quest is offering right now, which has pieces we can easily weave into our week. 

I just love when folks like those at Knowledge Quest bless others forward by sharing simple-to-use, faith-(and-history!)-based free printables.  I am not a whiz at printable making, but pray that by sharing photos and explanations of how we celebrate feast days, I may bless you in some way as well.

May your Saint Patrick's Day be rich in blessings.  Saint Patrick, pray for us.